


Cold Crossing

by Aithilin



Series: Nyx Ulric Appreciation Week 2020 [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Military borders, Nyx Ulric Appreciation Week, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24821428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: The chill of Gralea wasn’t the only coldness Nyx was familiar with when crossing a border.
Series: Nyx Ulric Appreciation Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794022
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	Cold Crossing

“Papers, please,” the guard at the gates had asked when they arrived. Nyx remembered the fear that had been building ever since he saw the smoking mountain that was Ravatogh and realized that he was no longer in Galahd. He remembered the harsh lessons that had come through their escort to the Crown City— a Kingsglaive Lieutenant who had taken them into Lucis by way of a forest road not yet managed or guarded by the invading Nifs— to keep quiet and obedient as they approached the Gate of the shining Crown City. He remembered the suspicion and harsh look, the wary examination of the Galahdian refugees in the back of the worn down little truck. The Glaive had given the Guard an ID card and they had been waved through with little fuss and fewer questions. Nyx wasn’t sure he had ever not been greeted with the same suspicion when crossing into Insomnia again and again through the years. 

Now, this guard sounded bored as Nyx handed over the documents that proclaimed him as a citizen of the Lucian capital city. A kingdom in itself, with its own secure checks and borders meant to keep the world in order. For a nation clinging to the idea of individual peace, Lucis seemed content to feel most secure when heavily defended. A citizen of a sovereign nation, ferrying the Crown Prince into a potentially hostile city. 

“Nature of your visit?” 

A sentiment seemingly shared by their chillier opposites. 

The Niflheim borers were controlled and managed with a military precision that Nyx had never actually seen before. He was aware of it, in a sense. The Crown City had its own armed entry points and checkpoints, but not to the show of power the Nifs seemed to muster. Masked soldiers patrolled the checkpoints, while officers— bundled against the cold winds— offered bored smiles to the people they stopped. All while their weapons were intimidatingly visible. 

“Business,” Nyx responded with barely a glance at his fare in the back seat, guarded by a Shield who seemed ready to take any delay as an act of war at this point. The quiet movement, the bored border guard with his very impressive Nif weapon, was the best that Nyx was hopping for; that there wouldn’t be too close a look at the paperwork, or details, or the documents being carried. 

Beside him, he felt the tension rolling off the young advisor to the Prince. He could see it out of the corner of his eye, as Ignis quietly and carefully closed his ever-present tablet. He could feel the young men itching for a fight despite being on their way to a party. It was a relief when the guard handed him back their documents and they were waved forward into the Imperial capital. 

Gralea spread before them in a maze of roads. There was something dark about it, grey from the winds and snow carried in on the tundra. The roads were a slick shine that could have been the sun’s glare or a layer of ice that Nyx wasn’t prepared for, but he took the invitation easily. It would be easier to leave when the time came; to take the Lucian car to a train and have it loaded, to make the stop in Tenebrae where the Prince could finally relax after playing nice with their enemies. 

But to his credit, the Crown Prince of Lucis seemed disinterested in the pain of crossing the border of a once-enemy nation. He had been eager to see the world laid out before him from the moment they had left Insomnia’s docks. He had advocated for the detours that would be taken on the way home to the safe and shining city with its shining sky and heat radiating from every surface that could reflect the light. He had been lively and carefree, harbouring a sense of his own wanderlust that Nyx admitted he had never expected. 

The aloof persona of a Crown Prince had started to seep in on the trains as they neared the cold capital of the Niflheim Empire. It hadn’t been a sudden transformation, but it was surprising now, as Nyx glanced back at his royal fare watching the uniform grey buildings pass buy in a blur around them. Now, the warm and shy Crown Prince of Lucis, eager to see the forests and mountains and rivers of his homeland and other friendly nations, seemed to fit right in with the chill of the summer snows of Gralea and the deceptive ice that seemed to hang in the air around them. He had passed across the border without a word or glance at the threat of the armed guards at each checkpoint; suffering their interruption like a stone statue. 

As Nyx followed the roads towards the monstrosity of Zegnautus Keep rising ahead, he was already looking forward to crossing the borders back to Lucis. Back to where Noctis was no longer the cold, silent Crown Prince on a diplomatic mission for his father.


End file.
